Democracy and Christianity

Why is it essential for Juan de la Cruz to internalize freedom?

We won’t recognize our instincts of “privilege and entitlement” if we don’t do a self-awareness exercise. In other words, we can’t embrace the crab mentality at one end and rent-seeking on the other.

Democracy is the mirror image of Christianity, i.e., the imperative of personal responsibility in pursuing the “common good” – as in love of neighbor.

And in the free market, it’s called “horizontal leadership.” In other words, rank is not a prerequisite to exercising personal responsibility. There is no free lunch in a democracy, whether Western or otherwise. Freedom is an inherent right.

“Ibon mang may layang lumipad

Kulungin mo at umiiyak

Bayan pa kayang sakdal-dilag

Ang ‘di magnasang makaalpas.”

Recall my first meeting with my Eastern European friends. “Freedom, democracy, and the free market are not about rules but principles. You must commit to transparency, or I am out the door.”

But Juan de la Cruz will struggle given our instincts reflected by our caste system: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy; ours is a culture of impunity.

Let’s hold it right there. What is at the core of our “learned helplessness” — and it explains why we can’t get over “pwede na ‘yan”? And why we locked ourselves in a vicious circle.” 

Let’s recall the Boo Chanco article again.

“Removing the economically restrictive provisions should help put us in the running for investor dollars. But not enough. Allowing foreign ownership of land won't do much to help us. Investors can't own land in Vietnam and China but have flocked there.

“Neither will all the attractive investment incentives in terms of tax perks convince investors to come here. The Philippines, according to Oxford Economics, is one of the least attractive destinations for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Asia-Pacific because of our poor infrastructure and business environments.”

We have erected a barrier for Juan de la Cruz to traverse poverty to prosperity.

Do we accept that we can’t reinvent ourselves too? The challenge we created is beyond doing our homework. 

Why is Ukraine still alive and kicking — e.g., my friends are doing brisk business on the ground serving their needs — when the Russians were supposed to have overthrown Zelensky in a few days?

The bottom line: We created a Marcos and a Duterte because we are yet to internalize freedom, democracy, and the free market.

Will Juan de la Cruz ever gather the courage to step up to the imperative of personal responsibility? It is beyond “People Power.”

Please leave it to the experts and the hierarchy. In other words, we in the Philippine elite and chattering classes are the “experts and hierarchy” in the company of oligarchy.

What chance does Juan de la Cruz have? Nada! What and who’s next? The blog covered GMA, PNoy, Du30, and BBM. See above; we locked ourselves in a vicious circle. 

And let’s recall Elfren Cruz too.

“History suggests no straight path to the top regarding economic development. Our nation has reached the status of a breakout nation, only to fall back again to being the sick man of Asia. But this only means that we must start over and maybe again and again until we finally reach the status of a breakout nation. Then from there, we may even reach the status of a developed economy.”

But what is the caveat? We can’t fall into the Einstein “insanity” trap – doing the same thing over again and expecting a different outcome – and why the blog’s reason for being is to challenge Juan de la Cruz to reinvent himself.

Yoda: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

And that is why we can’t relate to the real-world experiences the blog has linked to over the last fourteen years.

I shared with several people a model to illustrate why “toss” logical yet linear and incremental thinking and “embrace” forward, lateral, and creative thinking.

Unfortunately, as the Singaporeans recognized, because of the absence of a profit motive in the public sector, there is no body of knowledge to distinguish “drivers” of an enterprise or economic undertakings and “enablers.” 

In the model I shared, because the enterprise netted a 5% loss in 2014 even when revenues grew by 25% (and 12% the prior year), it had to forward think and determine how much revenues must grow to attain at least break-even.

Recall that the blog often speaks about scenario planning. It’s called “analytics” beyond “analysis.” In the referenced case, increasing sales promotion by 33% and advertising by 90% would double revenues and erase the loss. 

In other words, seek economies of scale, not devolution, as in the crab mentality.

In fairness, we kept upgrading the product. It starts with benchmarking against the best in the global market and committing to continual innovation. TikTok elbowed even Facebook. This universe is dynamic, not static. [Why is the Philippine caste system a barrier in our effort to traverse poverty to prosperity?]

That is an Eastern European example. Then recall that I decided to buy an outside technology despite our over a thousand scientists at my former Fortune 500 company. And separately, we had scores of experts in our global marketing organization.

What was the “driver” of the undertaking? Our company and its two bigger competitors were aggressively developing “the next generation” product, i.e., technology was the driver. And that’s why my response to our pharma unit’s CEO when he nervously asked, “What are we waiting for?”

And the technology paved the way for our most significant brand to attain a dominant global market leadership position. Still, we had to iterate the game plan. We test-marketed in three countries to fine-tune every element of the project before we did a global rollout.

The other factor not to miss is that in the free enterprise system, rank is not a prerequisite to exercising personal responsibility or horizontal leadership.

Recall too that in India, I chose a more expensive piece of land in Mumbai for our tech center. It is called “risk management.” The infrastructure risk in Bangalore was too much to take, given that the project was of regional import, i.e., it was not a local facility per se.

And I was alone on that trip. The president was supposed to be with me, but at that time, I still had a Philippine passport and could not obtain a visa on time. We postponed the trip, but when I was ready to fly, the president was not. Did I call the president before I made the decision? No. In the meantime, he instructed the company lawyers to obtain a blue passport for me.

Again, what was the “driver” of the undertaking? Beyond a tech center, we had a high-volume business that we consolidated. Still, I thought the country manager would have a heart attack. He came up via the Finance career track, and spending less was his mantra. And so I said, “How many margin points are we gaining moving from thirteen low-tech contract-manufacturing facilities to the one-robotic factory? Run the numbers.”

Before I flew back to New York, he came to me and, with a wide grin, said, “The team is on Cloud 9, proud of the company’s commitment to the country. We forwarded the requisite paperwork to the approval process, including the board’s policy committee.”

Things don’t happen like clockwork. The real world does not present itself like a well-researched dissertation. And why the blog distinguishes “logical yet linear and incremental thinking” and “forward, lateral, and creative thinking.”

Why can’t we get ahead of the curve in energy development? Why do we generate the most negligible exports when we have over 400 ecozones?

Sadly, we’re too “sabog” to prioritize — as in “the vital few instead of the trivial many” — and connect the dots — as in “coherence” — that we fall into the trap of “crab mentality.”

And our lack of development experience feeds our worldview. Conversely, Singapore gives the US a run for the money, competitive-wise, because of its experience as an economic miracle.

How do we develop self-awareness, awareness of others, and understanding of our universe?

Democracy and Christianity.

Why is it essential for Juan de la Cruz to internalize freedom?

We won’t recognize our instincts of “privilege and entitlement” if we don’t do a self-awareness exercise.

And we are doomed if we tacitly accept that we can’t reinvent ourselves.

Gising bayan!